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Commissioner Susan Bitter Smith is resigning from the Arizona Corporation Commission effective January 4. Bitter Smith has been under tremendous political pressure following a decision by Attorney Mark Brnovich to ask the Arizona Supreme Court to remove her from office because of a conflict of interest.

The Arizona Department of Corrections has awarded a contract for 1,000 private prison beds to Corrections Corporation of America.

Saying the claims against his client have no basis, the attorney for utility regulator Susan Bitter Smith asked the state's high court late Wednesday to reject the bid by Attorney General Mark Brnovich to oust her from office.

Officials with the private prison operator that runs Arizona State Prison-Kingman say sex offenders that are set to be housed at the prison by the end of March will be taken elsewhere before their release.

Department of Insurance Director Andy Tobin will replace longtime Superintendent Lauren Kingry as the head of the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions, in a possible sign that Gov. Doug Ducey will move to consolidate the two agencies next year.

Arizona lawmakers voted to rebuke the Department of Child Safety on Tuesday afternoon, a striking statement against an agency that has struggled to impress the legislators who created it over a year ago.

State officials said hundreds of thousands of web attacks batter Arizona agencies every day, not to mention attacks on private businesses, adding up to millions of attempted hacks in a given month.

After four years with R&R Partners and Axiom Public Affairs, Stuart Luther left the world of lobbying to engage the next generation of policymakers as the Arizona program director for the Junior Statesman Foundation, a nonprofit educational group that supports Junior State of America.

More than 1,000 inmates were admitted to the Arizona Department of Corrections without a fingerprint record or criminal history between 2007 and 2014, according to records from the agency.

Commissioner Bob Stump is accusing SolarCity and Checks and Balances Project, a critic of Arizona’s regulatory agency, of acting like a “mafia” following the disclosure that the two have financial ties.